Ever since the 2000 election where the Supreme Court of Florida had to step into the 50-50 presidential election results, eventually choosing Bush as the winner over Gore, there’s been a huge amount of dissatisfaction in the American electorate with the Electoral College process.
A presidential nominee must win 270 Electoral College votes in order to win the presidency, yet these are awarded in clusters (i.e. California has 55 E.C. votes, Florida has 27, New York has 31, etc.) If a state’s election comes down to a hair, complicated recounts come into play, and even worse — as was the case in Florida. But for all the complaints about this process, George Will made an interesting argument earlier this morning on This Week With George Stephanopoulos that this complicated process helps quarantine the complexities into state boundaries, preventing a hair-thin election from being an even more complicated national problem/recount. George Will notes that in all 54 of America’s presidential elections, there has only been 5 instances where the Electoral College nightmare reared its head — the latest being Florida in 2000.
But as NBC NEWS’ Political Director and Chief White House Correspondent, Chuck Todd, reported earlier last week, there is one Electoral College scenario that could be the grandaddy of all election nightmares — President Romney and Vice President Biden are forced into office together. Check it out below.
